Vast Plains - Wonder Ballroom, Portland OR - February 1, 2016

[Hell, Down Below] I came out of the bathroom and Flame was nowhere to be seen. I finally decided to see if he’d already gone in, pushed open the double doors, and was hit with a wall of hellish noise – an inferno, if you will. I pushed the doors back against the inferno, positive Flame wouldn’t have ventured in there on his own - settled back to wait. Oh but he had. Seconds later, he wandered out, twitching. We stared into each other’s eyes, nodded, and ventured in together - hand in hand - lights pulsing – abrasive music. Pound. Pound. Pound. All one repetitive screeching incessant enduring seizure-inducing tone. We wandered around, disoriented, perturbed. Pretended to look at the table of anarchist books. I eventually just had to face away from the stage – which was fine - there was plenty of people-watching to do. The only action on the stage was a dark figure huddled over a big metallic suitcase. The sucker crowd [anarchist/ punk/ intellectual - read, in black or army green clothing, aloof and nonchalant but exceedingly kind – not to mention the girl in the Laura Ingalls dress with a crocheted squirrel hat (at least she was unique)] was committed to pretending like it was all completely normal – just standard fare. Flame couldn’t take it: “Bam – that part was amazing - Oh, remember that one part!?!” It was so awful, we couldn’t stop laughing. I decided I had to partake and forced myself to stare at the lights, seizures be damned – in the end, it was transportative. In a way that left you depleted, limp, scared. I kind of liked it. The weird thing was, I was pretty sure it was an intro from Godspeed You, designed to break us down – completely- before they lifted us up. And it wasn’t – the set list, only available in-venue, listed Vast Plains. Vast Plains has no internet presence but might end up being the more memborable part of the show than Godspeed You.